Today’s News & Buzz

Bach: Pierre-Laurent Aimard (piano). Wigmore Hall, London, 20.9.2014 (MB) The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book One, BWV 846-69 Having heard Pierre-Laurent Aimard play The Art of Fugue in this very hall a few years ago, I was, despite very mixed feelings concerning that performance, keen to hear this al.... More »

Having greeted the idea of this CD with huge enthusiasm and given it some warm announcements right here, I'm sorry to say that a certain tenor's new recording, 'Du bist die Welt für mich' (English title is on the cover, right), has in its entirety proved a tad underwhelming. So I've written a piece.... More »

As a new film raises the late Fela Kutis profile even further, Peter Culshaw recalls meeting the controversial and contrary Nigerian star in a cloud of dope smoke, surrounded by some of his 26 wives and wearing just a pair of red underpantsFela Kutis crossover into the western mainstream has been .... More »

The annual Dogstar Orchestra concert series of experimental music has been going in various locations in and around Los Angeles since May 30. The venue on June 10 was the Wulf, a converted industrial loft space on Santa Fe street downtown, and a good-sized crowd settled in for an evening of spoken and electronic works…

The annual Dogstar Orchestra concert series of experimental music has been going in various locations in and around Los Angeles since May 30. The venue on June 10 was the Wulf, a converted industrial loft space on Santa Fe street downtown, and a good-sized crowd settled in for an evening of spoken and electronic works…

Last week amounted to a floodgate of new music being opened: from a few new subscription-series pieces per season from major figures and some encouragement to young talent by way of CONTACT! commissions, the Philharmonic and partners performed well over 60 pieces from composers of all stages and many walks of life.

And it’s a knighthood for maestro András Schiff in the Queen’s Birthday Honours. It couldn’t happen to a better guy or a finer artist. Congratulations! More here: http://www.wigmore-hall.org.uk/about-us/news/sir-andr%C3%A1s-schiff

‘That’s the first time actually I’ve ever been moved by the words of The Ring alone…I normally find that the text alone makes you yearn for the music, but that seemed quite wonderful to me.’ Thus Michael Tanner, lecturing on Götterdämmerung, about Dame Harriet Walter declaiming Brünnhilde’s Immolation Scene in its various incarnations and her husband Guy Paul reading Wagner’s stage directions…

At one time the expression ‘Cheltenham, Symphony’ was used as a disparaging term. Peter Pirie in his The English Musical Renaissance (Victor Gollanz, London, 1979) states that the phrase ‘was coined to describe a work in simple-minded sonata form, simple-minded tonality, and simple-minded faith in a scissors-and-paste method of composition…

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